Topic: Game Builder Garage

@Snatcher There is a demo for it too, so you can try out it right now.

@SepticLemon Yo there's a demo????? Oh i'm downloading right now.

@Snatcher Yeah, there's a demo, though I wish the demo came out before the game's release, rather than on the release day. But at least there's a means to try it out if you're unsure about it.

I'm going to assume it's the first project where you make a game of Tag.

@SepticLemon That I already figured out a while back in my own way, but yeah it's just annoying keep running into roadblocks each time and then spending hours trying to figure it out and barely get anywhere.

I tried to do a different game and make it based on the ball rolling lesson but instead of controlling the ball you tilt the entire stage (like Monkey Ball, except a top-down view). Apparently I can only get it to tile in one direction only, and I'm just annoyed staring at a blank screen for who knows how long trying everything and getting nowhere. -.-

It has to do with those hinge connections, but...apparently you can only use one at a time...? I don't know, giving GBG a break in general for now.

@Joeynator3000 Any chance you can share that with me so that I can have a look?

@SepticLemon ...Share what?

@Joeynator3000 What you've done so far so that I can look at it.

@SepticLemon Like I said, I'm giving the game a break for now, I've already closed out of it and playing other games now, no idea when I'll go back to it.

@SepticLemon Demo looks great, I think you can do all the tutorials, if so then oh boy, I need to make some time for this, this week.

...Yeah if you do advanced tutorials let me know. lol

I am able to eventually get things working, but holy crap do they take forever, and it just wears me out, especially when I don't fully understand everything.

As for my 2D game screen issue I was having, I eventually figured something out and it turned out to be less complicated than expected as well. (this was a couple of days ago, lol) I used a location sensor on the player's person object, then used the comparison nodes to tell it when to stop the scrolling. Even though I want to try and imitate Super Mario Bros., I kinda wanna just leave it there for now, what I was working on last was trying to simulate the brick and ? blocks.

As for the ball rolling game where you tilt the platform itself, yeah...I've no idea, but I'm sure it has to do with the hinges. I can only get one to work at a time, that said, I didn't even save that one since I never got anywhere. But if ScepticLemon wants my platformer I can share that eventually, not much to look at, though. But at least you can see how I managed the camera, also I made a running mechanic, lol

@Joeynator3000 I don’t think @SepticLemon “wants your platformer”, so much as is willing to offer you a helping hand with an issue that’s clearly causing you some grief.

You’ve posted multiple times about wanting to better understand the more advanced workings of the game, and as our citrusy friend clearly has some experience with programming (which is more than I can say), they seem to be in an ideal position to offer some guidance. They’ve certain my helped me.

Your issue with lack of in-game tutorials is very valid, but this is where the community steps in, as Septic is doing. If I were you, I’d accept the help that’s been offered. But… I’m not, so I’ll probably just continue pestering Septic with basic programming queries myself.

....He said he wanted to see what I had. The platformer is all I have, and it's not very much, lol.

Dear @SepticLemon,

Sorry it’s taken me so long, but I’ve finally finally got around to playing Perfect Red 1.5.

I had a lot of fun. It’s a very entertaining little shooter. I like how you have to pay attention to accuracy as well as just gunning everything down.

I’m not sure if you’re looking for feedback, but a few things I noticed as a player are:

1) After the game finishes, there’s very little time to actually read your score. Given that each game lasts a while, a few seconds to reflect at the end of each game before being booted out to the main menu might be welcome. Maybe even a ‘retry’ or ‘back to main menu’ option if possible, so the player can choose when to start again.

2) I found that when there were multiple enemies spawning at the top and bottom of the screen that it was very hard to move the UFO fast enough. It didn’t occur too often, but I felt a bit helpless when it did. I’m not sure if there’s any way of stopping the enemies spawning too far apart from one another, but increasing the speed of the UFO (slightly) or increasing the size of the enemies a touch might make it slightly easier to get from top to bottom.

3) This is kind of baked into the name, but I found that everything being red made it slightly difficult to differentiate between things. I especially found that when my eyes were fixed to the right of the screen to watch the enemies spawn, it was easy to lose track of the UFO on the left. I appreciate it’s Perfect Red’ not ‘Perfect Rainbow’, but a bit more contrast might make things slightly easier to keep track of.

Anyway, thanks for sharing it with is, and I look forward to seeing what else you’ve got in store!

@Maxz

1. One of the many limitations that GBG has is not having the means to save any values after a game reset. At least in stuff like Game Maker Studio and Multimedia fusion, you can save things into an .ini file that in turn can be read even after the game is closed. My Multimedia Fusion version of the game has a high score that's always saved. I guess I could look into a means to change how the game over works, maybe I could cause the reset to trigger with a button press rather than a timer.

2. I wish I could make the little UFO move faster. But in GBG, there's a top value of 2, which is what's set. Originally there were only 3 lanes that enemies would move through, but I changed this to 4 to make it more challenging. But reaching the top to the bottom does require some really good timing, and it can be tricky to pull off at times.

3. The idea of the aesthetic of Perfect Red was that when I originally built the Multimedia fusion version of the game, I envisioned it as a Virtual Boy game, so I came up with the name Perfect Red, as you have to shoot perfectly in a Virtual Boy game.

@SepticLemon Cool, that all makes sense. Again, sorry for the unsolicited feedback. I really did enjoy it, and I’d encourage everyone to give it a go!

Okay, another query! I’d like to map the L and R triggers so that they rotate an object in opposite directions (R clockwise, L anti-clockwise). I can achieve this with a control stick, but with the shoulder buttons I have no such luck. L and R both just turn he object clockwise. Is there any intermediate Nodon that inverts the input of the Nodon before it, turning L into ‘minus L’ and thereby spinning in the other direction?

@Maxz Yeah, use the Inversion Nodon. Whatever you put in it is inverted, so a positive becomes negative, and a negative becomes positive.

R button > Rotation object (whatever axis)

L button > Inversion > Rotation object (same axis as above)

No worries, it's always good to hear feedback. I'll have a look at improving the whole reset time thing in the GameOver and tweak the enemies so that it's possible to get top to bottom with some ease.

@SepticLemon Haha, to think the thing that inverts things would be called the Inversion Nodon. I feel a bit silly now. Still need to familiarise myself with A LOT of Nodons, as I’ve still only used an absolute fraction of the total.

Thanks as always!

@Maxz Yeah, the one thing this isn't good at is giving you enough tutorial projects to understand all the nodon. Unless you already understand what it might mean from previous experience in programming, you might not know or miss thing entirely. The best bet is to skim read the Nodonpedia when you get stuck.